Structural Engineer Says Inside Job

[Arus808]

http://www.vermontguardian.com/commentary/032007/TwinTowers.shtml

Why the towers fell: Two theories

By William Rice, March 1, 2007

William Rice, P.E., is a registered professional civil engineer who worked on structural steel (and concrete) buildings in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He was also a professor at Vermont Technical College where he taught engineering materials, structures lab, and other building related courses.

Of course, he was not there during the investigations

 

[332nd]

http://www.vermontguardian.com/commentary/032007/TwinTowers.shtml



Of course, he was not there during the investigations

Ah Vermont, home of the trustifundian.

ETA: No new information just "Near freefall/freefall, concrete pulverized, molten metal (byproduct of explosives donchakno?) violation of Newton's Law of Conservation of Momentum. (At least he could name it.)

 

[Mancman]

The article is 100% rehashed, long since debunked rubbish.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Is this the same William Rice who is Professor Emeritus at Villanova University college of engineering?

Is anyone else thinking about Steven Jones' "retirement" right about now?

 

[maccy]

His academic qualifications are irrelevant if he can't correctly describe the conclusions of the NIST report. His version requires the columns that weren't damaged by the impact to fail due to fire. He fails to make mention of fireproofing being dislodged or of the floor trusses sagging and causing the exterior columns to bow inwards. Also his assumption is that as the collapse progresed the columns of the top block would still line up with those on the bottom - ridiculous.

 

[CHF]

The 10,000 gallons of jet fuel (half capacity) in each jetliner did cause horrendous fires over several floors, but it would not cause the steel members to melt or even lose sufficient strength to cause a collapse.....If a structural steel building could collapse because of fire, it would do so slowly as the various steel members gradually relinquished their structural strength.

So why did the exterior columns bend inward prior to collapse?

Oh right - they were gradually relinquishing their structural strength.

The interesting fact is that each of these 110-story Twin Towers fell upon itself in about ten seconds at nearly free-fall speed. This violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum that would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass (weight) increases and the free-fall speed decreases.

So according to this guy, controlled demolitions violate Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum. Brilliant.

Seems like he's just parroting all the usual twoofer talking points without asking the logical questions, such as: why were the demolition charges so quiet?

 

[apathoid]

There are 129,000 registered civil engineers in the US, so there are bound to be a few kooks among them. If 15% of the general population believes the inside job theories and that percentage holds up for the population of qualified experts(actually, if the CD theories held any water, that percentage would likely go way up) - there should be around 19,000 twoofer civil engineers. There are now 3....nuff said

 

[sleahead]

Yes, all old recycled stuff apart from this:

Contrary to the sudden collapse of the Twin Towers and Building #7, the four other smaller World Trade Center buildings #3, #4, #5, and #6, which were severely damaged and engulfed in flames on 9/11, still remained standing. There were no reports of multiple explosions. The buildings had no pools of molten metal (a byproduct of explosives)

Molten metal a byproduct of explosives? I've never seen that before.

 

[Firestone]

And it's not even true!

There is a report of molten metal under WTC 6.
(Courtesy of 911Myths.)

 

[Totovader]

Seems that 911 Conspiracy Smasher may have already noticed this guy back in September:

In his letter published Sept. 22 ("Just looking for the facts"), William Rice, P.E. claims that WTC Building #7 had fires on less than 10 percent of two floors and says that the NIST investigation is "not yet complete." That's an odd claim, because NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder, when interviewed by Popular Mechanics, had this to say: "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom – approximately 10 stories – about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out."

http://911conspiracysmasher.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html

I can't find the original article, though.

 

[TheGrunion]

I'm a registered civil P.E in three states.

A professional engineering license for civil engineering is not an appropriate credential to demonstrate expertise in structural engineering.

Also, "working on" structural steel buildings could mean a lot of things. He could have been performing subprofessional work (CADD, materials testing, construction inspection, etc.) or he could have been performing site/civil tasks (such as handling the storm run-off coming from the building, or the grading plan of the site where the bulding was constructed).

 

[Orphia Nay]

Never mind the fact that his sources are TV programs, how wrong can you get?:

The collapse of WTC building #7, which housed the offices of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the Department of Defense, among others, was omitted from the government’s 9/11 Commission Report, and its collapse has yet to be investigated.

The final WTC7 report has not been released yet (it shouldn't be far off, though, AFAIK), but to say there has been no investigation is stupid.

 

[Miragememories]

His academic qualifications are irrelevant if he can't correctly describe the conclusions of the NIST report. His version requires the columns that weren't damaged by the impact to fail due to fire. He fails to make mention of fireproofing being dislodged or of the floor trusses sagging and causing the exterior columns to bow inwards. Also his assumption is that as the collapse progresed the columns of the top block would still line up with those on the bottom - ridiculous.

Now take that fireproofing. There's a big and critical assumption on the part of NIST.

They assume it was mostly removed by the aircraft impact because it's critical to making their model work. They make other assumptions as well but the dislodged fireproofing one is particularly questionable.

I've yet to see or read of anything that can move this 'best guess' out of the realm of speculative fantasy. They can't provide any physical proof. Once the buildings collapsed, I suspect a fair bit of fireproofing was removed.

MM

 

[T.A.M.]

Now take that fireproofing. There's a big and critical assumption on the part of NIST.

They assume it was mostly removed by the aircraft impact because it's critical to making their model work. They make other assumptions as well but the dislodged fireproofing one is particularly questionable.

I've yet to see or read of anything that can move this 'best guess' out of the realm of speculative fantasy. They can't provide any physical proof. Once the buildings collapsed, I suspect a fair bit of fireproofing was removed.

MM

please indicate how their assumption that when a Jet Airliner crashed through the WTC it removed a substantial amount of the "spray on" fireproofing is "speculative fantasy" versus a WELL EDUCATED GUESS.

Seems it is much less "Speculative Fantasy" than lets say (1) a never tried before demolition with a never tried before demolition medium (thermite) or (2) Star Wars Beam Weapons.

TAM

 

[maccy]

Now take that fireproofing. There's a big and critical assumption on the part of NIST.

They assume it was mostly removed by the aircraft impact because it's critical to making their model work. They make other assumptions as well but the dislodged fireproofing one is particularly questionable.

I've yet to see or read of anything that can move this 'best guess' out of the realm of speculative fantasy. They can't provide any physical proof. Once the buildings collapsed, I suspect a fair bit of fireproofing was removed.

MM

Given that William Rice doesn't talk about the fireproofing at all, I think it would derail this thread to discuss NIST's assumptions here. There's already a thread that discusses the fireproofing removal here:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73160

I suggest you read that thread and make a post in it, if you still have an argument to make or a question to ask.

 

[Miragememories]

There are 129,000 registered civil engineers in the US, so there are bound to be a few kooks among them. If 15% of the general population believes the inside job theories and that percentage holds up for the population of qualified experts(actually, if the CD theories held any water, that percentage would likely go way up) - there should be around 19,000 twoofer civil engineers. There are now 3....nuff said

Get off your high horses.

Any expert who disagrees with you loonies becomes a loonie.

Any loonie who agrees with you loonies becomes an expert.

No matter how many experts come forth it will never be enough.

I can see you folks would take it to a Supreme Court decision if the numbers ever got too close.

Let's face it, your in bed with your beliefs and all the crap you spew about "sho me the proof" is meaningless because when "push comes to shove" you retreat to some lame ass excuse to believe what your commited to believe.

You lose too much face if you validate anything.

The only people worth a little respect here are the rare few who occasionally stray and begrudgingly acknowlege yes that "i" has been dotted.

Yes the ever imminent FINAL NIST Report on WTC7 better be good because you folks failed royally in debunking the CT claims of CD.

MM

 

[CHF]

Any expert who disagrees with you loonies becomes a loonie.

Any loonie who agrees with you loonies becomes an expert.

No matter how many experts come forth it will never be enough.

You make it sound as if you have tons and that we keep raising the bar.

How many experts do you have, MM?

Is it now 2? 3-4 perhaps?

And name one loonie who became an expert.

 

[pomeroo]

NIST's Puzzling Silence

[=Miragememories;2390843]Now take that fireproofing. There's a big and critical assumption on the part of NIST.

They assume it was mostly removed by the aircraft impact because it's critical to making their model work. They make other assumptions as well but the dislodged fireproofing one is particularly questionable.

I've yet to see or read of anything that can move this 'best guess' out of the realm of speculative fantasy. They can't provide any physical proof. Once the buildings collapsed, I suspect a fair bit of fireproofing was removed.

MM

What a shame that NIST never got around to publishing anything. If they had, you could have read it to learn how the researchers determined how much fireproofing was removed by the impact of the planes (assuming they existed) and how that factor contributed to the collapses.
I'd guess that NIST's refusal to commit any conclusions to print is based on the agency's embarrassment over their reliance on speculation and their avoidance of actual calculations. If it had been up to me, NIST would have published ten thousand pages of analysis, graphs, illustrations, photos, and commentary. I would have made available to the public a list of FAQ and offered, for starters, a 298-page pdf file called NIST NCSTAR 1. But, then, that's just me.

 

[T.A.M.]

Get off your high horses.

Any expert who disagrees with you loonies becomes a loonie.

Any loonie who agrees with you loonies becomes an expert.

No matter how many experts come forth it will never be enough.

I can see you folks would take it to a Supreme Court decision if the numbers ever got too close.

Let's face it, your in bed with your beliefs and all the crap you spew about "sho me the proof" is meaningless because when "push comes to shove" you retreat to some lame ass excuse to believe what your commited to believe.

You lose too much face if you validate anything.

The only people worth a little respect here are the rare few who occasionally stray and begrudgingly acknowlege yes that "i" has been dotted.

Yes the ever imminent FINAL NIST Report on WTC7 better be good because you folks failed royally in debunking the CT claims of CD.

MM

Well shut up whining, and get your amazing expert engineer to do a paper refuting the NIST findings and I AM SURE that people here will read it...oh wait, he hasnt written anything on it...oh wait he doesnt even acknowledge it...oh wait, he simply parrots the same 100 or so myths that we have seen 100 times.

William of the 100 myths...that is what we should call him.

TAM

 

[sleahead]

Yes the ever imminent FINAL NIST Report on WTC7 better be good because you folks failed royally in debunking the CT claims of CD.

No seismic spikes for explosions at WTC7 = No CD = Debunked.

Next.